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December 11, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - December 11

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN GORDON SMITH (R), OREGON: And I, for one, and -- am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets, in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day, that is obscured. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore.

SEN SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: Well, I think there's growing in patients across the country but what is taking place in Iraq as it seems to breakdown more on sectarian lines, and it's not been just what Gordon Smith is saying, it's everybody. And the country has been pretty patient on Iraq, but now it's time to move things forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Gordon Smith, on the Senate floor last week, saying Brownback on FOX NEWS SUNDAY, yesterday, to died-in-the-wool Republicans, voicing their dissent from the president's policies. Some thoughts about this now from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard; Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call; and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio -- FOX NEWS contributors, all.

So, what do we have here, just a couple of voices, and a Republican Party still largely behind the president or something more than that?

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: I think it's possible this could be the beginning of something more if the president's Iraq policy, whatever it turns into after his speech, before Christmas, doesn't begin to show results. I think that's the inpatients and frustration that Gordon Smith and Sam Brownback are voicing, not that they're ready to get out in four to six months, as some Democrats say, but just that that they feel that this either has to show results, look like it's succeeding or else they're through.

MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: Yeah, what Gordon Smith said is we've got to figure out how to do this right. So either we clear and hold and build or let's go home. This is a lot like what John McCain has been saying. John McCain has been saying we need more troops in there, we need to win this, and it -- but if -- that it's unconscionable to, in so many words, I'm paraphrasing, to send men out to die for a policy that's meant not to succeed. So, I mean, the president himself is saying that his policy is not working, that there's going to be some sort of major change.

HUME: The policy or the tactics?

KONDRACKE: Well, whatever it is that we're doing is not working, as he says, "fast enough."

HUME: Mort, I didn't mean to send you off on the vocabulary search that was going to...

KONDRACKE: Well, I mean -- look, the policy has.

HUME: I wasn't trying to sump the panel, here.

(CROSSTALK)

KONDRACKE: The policy is failing. The policy as it's being executed, regardless, is failing, and it's got to be changed. We do not know what the change is going to be, but I would say that he's got three or four months and if we're not making progress in three or four months, then what the Democrats are going to do is start mounting resolutions to say -- to try to push him out and you're going to start seeing Republicans going along with that. That's what happened in Vietnam, I think that's what'll happen here.

FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD: And then the next, from what Mort's talking about would be to start to cut funding, which they finally did, tragically, I think, in Vietnam after American troops were pulled out.

I think there is, Brit, something more than just a couple of Republican senators, a conservatives like Brownback, and a moderate as well, running -- saying these things. I mean, I didn't think that the sound at all like McCain. And Brownback said he wasn't bailing out on Bush, but that's exactly what he was doing, bailing out, completely.

You know, so there are just a lot of Republicans who don't want to defend this war anymore. On the other hand the same hand there are -- actually on the same hand, there area Republicans who are deeply resentful of Bush for harming them, they blame Bush because of the war, and that's why they lost these seats, but particularly for not firing Don Rumsfeld sooner during the campaign. They have convinced themselves that if he had let Rumsfeld go about 90 days earlier, then somehow that would have -- they would have saved the Senate and lost many House seats. I think that not true, but there is a lot of resentment against Bush among Republicans now over the war.

HUME: Mara, your view though is that it isn't just that he needs to make a speech that has the appearance and the sound of a fresh start of some kind...

LIASSON: He's done that, yeah.

HUME: What he needs -- the speech isn't really very important, what matters to you is whether something happens.

LIASSON: The results. Yeah, I do. I think that was saw, last Fall, he gave a series of speeches that were supposed to be a kind of fresh start, plan for victory. We've seen them roll a number of, kind of, repackaging or rhetorical offenses on Iraq. I think there has to be a change in what's happening over there. It has to look like the politics of the situation are coming together, that the Sunnis and Shiites are not slaughtering each other, and there has to the beginnings of stability.

HUME: Does there have to be more said about, and more of a discussion of the McCain option, which is the option of enlarging the troop strength in there, which the Baker-Hamilton Commission has dismissed? Is that something that.

KONDRACKE: I do not see how -- the president says that he wants a victory, I don't see how you get a victory without the McCain option or at least some sort of a big extended surge in American troops there to try to bring the military situation, at least to pacified Baghdad, as we've discussed many times.

I gather that there's another option going around at the Washington Post says that Dick Cheney is in favor of, the so-called 80 percent option, that we tilt decisively toward the Shiites. But, I don't see how you can do that if the Shiites include Muqtada al-Sadr who just wants us out. You know, he wants to win, he wants to take over and he's an enemy of the United States, so we've got to pick and choose among our Shiites, at least.

BARNES: Look, I think his speech next week matters a lot, but the president has to say some tangible things, he can't just be, they're bad, we're good, you know, we need to pursue the war aggressively and so on. He needs to see things like -- I think he does need to announce a surge and say, look, we're going to extend the time that troops in Iraq who are already there -- extend it by a couple of months, we're going to send in new troops, several new brigades, and we're all going to concentrate on Baghdad and American troops are not going to hang back. There's going to be a big American footprint, and we're going to secure Baghdad. And he can name an envoy, you know, and do different things. Mort wants to send Jim Baker to Syria.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: Mort feels like they can send Jim Baker to Syria so he can stay there.

KONDRACKE: Yeah, right.

(LAUGHTER)

BARNES: He can do some other things like that, but he's go say look, here's what we're going to do different and these are steps, this is action we're going to take, and that'll give him a few more months. I think if he sends more troops in there and concentrates on American troops actually during the work and not relying on the Iraqis, that he can secure Baghdad.

HUME: And what happens if the Iraqi government objects?

BARNES: Well then -- they better not.

(LAUGHTER)

HUME: When we come back with our panel, does Barack Obama have what the first President Bush used to call the "big mo," momentum? What does this reception in New Hampshire say about Hillary Clinton's prospects? All that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN BARACK OBAMA (D), ILLINOIS: I am telling you, New Hampshire, America is ready to turn the page, America is ready for a new set of challenges. This is our time, a new generation that is preparing to lead. You are part of that, and I'm grateful to be partner with you on that. New Hampshire, thank you very much. Let's go make it happen. I appreciate it. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Listen to that. Two years out, a guy who's just two years in and, look at the reception he got in New Hampshire this weekend. Mara, you where there, what was it like?

LIASSON: It was really something, it was like to weaken before the New Hampshire primary, there were 160 members of the media. They sold 1,500 tickets and then had to open up another room so they could shoehorn 200 more people. So he was speaking to 2,200 people.

You heard the Kennedyesque flourishes in the speeches, and that's how people -- oh, many people made the association. I haven't felt this since John F. Kennedy. People just went ga-ga over him. I mean, it was really extraordinary. And he's very analytical and he's constantly analyzing what's happening to him. And of course, something extraordinary is happening to him, and he said that he feels that it's not about him, of course, it's really about the voters, and he's just a symbol or a stand in for this incredible spirit.

HUME: Movement.

LIASSON: Spirit that people have, that the election represented, which is that people want something different. Well, conveniently, he is something new and different, and for many New Hampshire Democrats who feel that Hillary Clinton, who is the early front- runner, has too much baggage, maybe can't win, he seems like the great fresh new face.

But look, as you, he's only been two year's in, he hasn't spent in many, many hours in New Hampshire and living rooms, as he will have to. And he'll be back to New Hampshire many times, but nobody has had a first reception like that.

HUME: What you're saying suggests to me, you're sure he's running.

LIASSON: I will be surprised if he doesn't run. I guess I would say that. I don't know this for a fact. I will be surprised if he doesn't run.

BARNES: You know, Mara says he's new and different, but here's what I wonder about -- and he said, it was quoted in the Washington Post this morning, and maybe he said it in one of his speeches that what's worked for him is to not be orthodox. And yet I've never heard -- I've never heard of a single word from him on any issue that isn't just the standard, you know, liberal position. Now, maybe he does have some unorthodox positions, but I've never heard them. He seems -- I mean, it seems like, you know, liberalism as usual, we've had for the last 50 years.

KONDRACKE: Well, I mean, he did cooperate with Tom Coburn, who is about as conservative as you can get in the Senate, from Oklahoma, who.

HUME: On.

KONDRACKE: On making earmarks transparent. You know, this was something that was in the air, but nonetheless, he's the one who picked it up and, along with Coburn he cooperated with Richard Lugar on non- proliferation.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: That's not an issue that cuts ideologically, though, really.

KONDRACKE: Well, OK, but what he's looking.

HUME: It's a perfectly good idea.

KONDRACKE: Nancy Pelosi said that he's.

BARNES: I said last Summer, she was against earmarks entirely.

KONDRACKE: I think he's got -- look, the message is -- that he's against this 24 hours, slash and burn political partisanship, that he's going to work to get problems solved.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: Everybody's in favor of that. He's going to have a debate with somebody who's in favor of 24 hour slash.

LIASSON: No, no, no that's not his position, that's what he -- that's what he symbolizes.

KONDRACKE: What he's against.

LIASSON: And he talks all the time about bridging divisions, his own personal story, bridges racial divisions.

HUME: But wait a minute.

LIASSON: And the implicit comparison is to Mrs. Clinton who is considered to be a polarizing figure.

HUME: Understood, but how long -- I mean, how much of a shelf life does that attitude have? Sooner or later he's going to have to declare himself on some of these issues.

LIASSON: Sure.

KONDRACKE: Of course, he has. And the question is.

HUME: (INAUDIBLE)

KONDRACKE: Wait a minute -- part of the question is the style of campaigning. I mean, does he.

BARNES: (SNICKERING)

KONDRACKE: Well -- what political campaigns.

BARNES: I laugh at Mort.

KONDRACKE: .have become is character assassination and if he does not indulge in that.

BARNES: Oh gee.

KONDRACKE: What was the 2006 campaign like, for heaven's sakes?

LIASSON: You know, he'll have to come up with some -- Fred, Fred, in order to.

BARNES: It was about, mainly, Iraq.

KONDRACKE: Of course, but we know his position on Iraq. But he's got.

BARNES: But, how is he an orthodox? What I'm saying is, all I've heard from him is -- all we know about him is he's a totally orthodox liberal.

HUME: Well answer, Mort, if you can.

KONDRACKE: Well, I'm telling that he does engage in bipartisan cooperation with some people. Now, on Iraq, he's -- we was against the Iraq war from the beginning, that's actually an advantage, probably, in Democratic primaries, as opposed to Hillary. It's a clear position; he's not demonizing people who were in favor of the war in the beginning. That's different from the way a lot of other politicians operate. Now, he is going to be -- he himself.

HUME: Now, let's assume, Mort -- all right, I accept that. And I think that's -- well, he can go a long wait on that. At some point, though, when he begins to articulate his positions and presumably because he's new, has some room and some flexibility, he hasn't locked himself, what sort of a Democrat will he be? Is this -- will he be a conventional Democrat, or will he be a Clinton sort of centrist Democrat.

KONDRACKE: Will he be Joe Lieberman?

HUME: I don't know.

KONDRACKE: I tend to doubt that he'll be Joe Lieberman, but.

HUME: Will he be Bill Clinton?

LIASSON: I think he's going to try to be more like Bill Clinton who, don't forget, wasn't just a centrist, he figured out how to bridge the left wing.

HUME: Oh I know that.

LIASSON: And that's what I think he's going to try to do.

BARNES: So far, all I've heard is he's John Kerry. Now, if you can cite something other than that.

KONDRACKE: Look, look, look, he is a bit of a blank slate. He's only been in the Senate for two year, right? So, everything is yet to be filled out.

LIASSON: Yeah, and the bottom line.

(CROSSTALK)

Look, all campaigns in the end, have to be about ideas and he is going to have to come up with some and he's going to have to prove that they are unorthodox, that he's running as the unorthodox candidate.

BARNES: I'm eager to hear them. I haven't heard any unorthodox.

HUME: What is your opinion of him as a political talent?

BARNES: Oh, he's great. I mean, look, he's a remarkable political talent who I'm sure scares' Hillary Clinton to death.

HUME: Do you agree with that -- Mort.

KONDRACKE: I think he has stimulated her to get moving, yeah.

LIASSON: I do not know about scaring her to death, because she has some formidable advantages that will be hard for him to overcome, getting in at this late time.

HUME: Late?

LIASSON: I know. It seem ridiculous to say that, but she's hired a lot of operatives, and also she's extended the -- her networks, her fundraising networks...

HUME: Well, dose anybody else in the field pose a threat to her at this moment?

LIASSON: Other than him?

HUME: Other than him.

LIASSON: I can't think of any.

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